


questo mondo è mio

by siderealtime



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siderealtime/pseuds/siderealtime
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a professor in possession of a grant, must be in want of a postdoc. //“I’m going to murder him,” Lizzy hisses, striding into their shared office.Charlotte makes a sympathetic noise but doesn’t look away from her monitor. Lizzy threatening murder has been a regular occurrence for about as long as Charlotte has known her—since the first week of freshman physics, to be precise, when the guy sitting next to Charlotte had said something about how women were bad at math. Lizzy had turned around from the row in front and verbally eviscerated him in front of the entire class, the grad TA, and the professor. Some enterprising soul filmed the last half of her tirade and put it on YouTube, and the guy didn’t show up to class for two weeks after that out of sheer embarrassment.
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet & Charlotte Lucas
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	questo mondo è mio

**Author's Note:**

> Someone could probably write a fic that actually seriously addresses the similarities between academia and Regency England, but I just wanted an excuse to project my feelings about academia onto fictional characters.

“I’m going to murder him,” Lizzy hisses, striding into their shared office. 

Charlotte makes a sympathetic noise but doesn’t look away from her monitor. Lizzy threatening murder has been a regular occurrence for about as long as Charlotte has known her—since the first week of freshman physics, to be precise, when the guy sitting next to Charlotte had said something about how women were bad at math. Lizzy had turned around from the row in front and verbally eviscerated him in front of the entire class, the grad TA, and the professor. Some enterprising soul filmed the last half of her tirade and put it on YouTube, and the guy didn’t show up to class for two weeks after that out of sheer embarrassment. 

Although Lizzy has learned some amount of discretion since undergrad—she actually manages to shut the office door behind her on the way in—some things never change. “No, seriously, Char,” she says, “if he keeps pulling this shit I’m going to punch William fucking Darcy in the fucking face.” 

Charlotte raises her eyebrows at that. Dr. Darcy’s been at the department for less than a week, and Lizzy’s already at a level of repetitive cursing previously achieved only after an entire semester of being paired with Louisa Hurst for cosmology group projects. This might be a record of some kind. “That would probably not be good for your academic career,” she says mildly. 

“It would be fucking worth it,” Lizzy mutters mutinously, starting to pace in front of Charlotte’s desk. On the literal warpath, Charlotte thinks drily. 

“Jesus, what did he do?” Charlotte says instead, checking that her code’s been saved before finally peeling her eyes away from her monitor. She looks up to see Lizzy strangling an imaginary neck. 

“So I was trying to talk to the colloquium speaker about some of their dust models—” Charlotte tries and fails to suppress a snort, and Lizzy rolls her eyes at her. “Just because you exoplanet people get all the money doesn’t mean other things can’t be interesting, too.” 

“I’m not saying ISM stuff isn’t interesting, just that the speaker today was boring as hell,” Charlotte says. She’d had to pull up her phone’s crossword app just to avoid literally falling asleep in the auditorium. She might have felt worse about it if one of the emeritus professors hadn’t literally started snoring halfway through. Even Jane, who usually takes beautifully neat handwritten notes at colloquium, had been surreptitiously scrolling through Instagram in the seat next to her. 

“It wasn’t the besttalk ever,” Lizzy concedes, “but there were some good points about reddening, and I wanted to know how different types of dust might affect star formation tracers—shut up, interstellar dust is important!” She flaps a hand at Charlotte’s eyeroll and collapses into the ratty armchair in the corner. “Anyway, I was waiting to talk to the speaker, and I overheard Darcy talking with Charlie. Which, okay, first of all: isn’t it wild that they’re actually _friends_?” 

Charlotte hums in agreement. Department gossip says the two are apparently best friends from grad school, but Dr. Bingley, the department’s newest faculty hire, is possibly the most cheerful person on campus. It’s hard to picture him getting along with Dr. William Darcy, whose cold aloofness has already made him infamous among the students. One would think rising star professors from Harvard would be at least somewhat charismatic, but maybe you don’t need charisma when your father was a Nobel-winning physicist. Charlotte wouldn’t know. 

Lizzy continues, “Charlie asked him if he’s met any potential collaborators yet, and Darcy said, and I quote, ‘No, I doubt anyone here would be up to my exacting standards.’” She affects a deep monotone and a stiff face. 

“ _Wow_ ,” Charlotte says, with deep feeling. “That’s a dick thing to say, even for a theorist.” 

“Right? Like, what’s the point of being on sabbatical in a department full of observers if you’re just going to be too much of an asshole to work with any of them?” Lizzy shakes her head, staring at the whiteboard on the opposite wall. The top left corner is covered in scribbles left by past grad students that have proven resistant to any kind of cleaning spray; they might have been done in Sharpie. The most legible one says “Emma owes George 3 burritos.” 

If she were anyone else, Charlotte wouldn’t have known anything else was wrong. But her years of experience as Lizzy’s best friend aren’t for nothing, and right now Lizzy’s eyes are slightly puffy. 

“And?” Charlotte prompts gently, when Lizzy doesn’t say anything else for a full thirty seconds. 

She sighs, not breaking off her staring contest with the whiteboard. “And then Charlie suggested that he talk to me, since my thesis is sort of related to his galaxy evolution models. Darcy said… he said, ‘Her last paper was decent, but not novel enough to interest me.’ Then he turned and saw me, so I pretended I hadn’t heard and went to go cry in the bathroom.” She tips her head back and closes her eyes. 

Charlotte winces in sympathy. Lizzy may be one of the most competent people she knows, but even she’s not immune to the impostor syndrome that eats at every grad student on the planet. 

She decides a brisk approach is best. Lizzy hates feeling pitied. 

“Fuck that guy,” Charlotte says, and Lizzy makes a noise that could be assent. “He obviously has no idea what he’s talking about. You’re good at what you do. He’s just an asshole. _And_ he’s a theorist, so his opinion doesn’t matter anyway.” 

Lizzy laughs somewhat shakily and lets Charlotte pull her up into a hug. 

“Let’s get some dinner,” she says into Charlotte’s hair. “I have some rosé at my apartment, we can get takeout. Thai again?” 

As if Charlotte doesn’t have Bangkok Garden on speed-dial specifically for their weekly Thursday night tradition. Honestly. 

  


* * *

  


The following Tuesday, Charlotte accidentally leaves her headphones at home. It’s a rookie mistake: while the walls in the astrophysics building aren’t especially thin, Charlotte’s office is next to Dr. Gardiner-Bennet’s, whose typical speaking volume is probably audible in the upper stratosphere. 

Also, because the universe is a cruel and unusual place, Tuesdays are joint Gardiner-Bennet/Bennet group meeting days. 

“Jane, dear, how are your postdoc applications coming?” Dr. Gardiner-Bennet asks, every single word clearly audible in Charlotte’s office. 

Jane says something too soft for Charlotte to hear. Everything about Jane’s demeanor is soft; she’s like a Hallmark card angel come to life. It would be one thing if she was just nice all the time—Charlotte was a barista at the campus coffee shop in undergrad, she’s no stranger to maintaining a façade of niceness—but the truly extraordinary thing about Jane is that she actually _means_ it. Charlotte has no clue how any human person can fit so much sincerity inside their body, but then she grew up in Georgia where “bless your heart” meant “fuck you,” so maybe her standards are skewed to begin with. 

“Wonderful, Jane,” Dr. Gardiner-Bennet enthuses. “You know, Charlie’s collaboration at Netherfield has a postdoc position opening up. Have you considered talking with him? He could write you an _excellent_ rec letter if you did a project with him, I’m sure. He did his PhD at MIT, you know, it’s a top program and he could really open up some doors there…” 

Dr. Gardiner-Bennet, who is incapable of using one sentence when five would do, proceeds to wax poetic about how absolutely _wonderful_ of a resource the _brilliant_ Charlie Bingley would be for a student as _talented_ as Jane. Charlotte pictures Lizzy trying very hard not to roll her eyes. 

Jane quietly says something else, sending Dr. Gardiner-Bennet into further raptures. 

“He’s already talked with you about going to the Netherfield conference? How _wonderful_ , Jane!” She takes a breath, presumably to prepare for another ten minutes of non-stop gushing about Charlie and/or Jane. 

Luckily for Lizzy’s eyeballs, Dr. Bennet takes the opportunity to jump in. “Yes, very good, Jane. It sounds like you’re making excellent progress. Perhaps we could get updates from the rest of the group? Lizzy, why don’t you tell us about your upcoming paper?” 

It’s no secret that Lizzy is the favored protégé of Dr. Bennet, a technically-retired emeritus professor. His marriage to Dr. Gardiner-Bennet isn’t particularly strange in and of itself, especially now that spousal hires are so common, but Charlotte has never understood these combined group meetings—their fields of research, like their temperaments, barely overlap. 

Lizzy dutifully summarizes her current project. Charlotte can pick out some phrases, like “spatially-resolved star formation rates” and “integral field spectroscopy,” which she mostly just recognizes because Lizzy tends to mutter under her breath when she writes. 

“Right now I’m a bit stuck on the discussion section,” Lizzy says. “I’m just not sure how to interpret some of the observations, especially the kinematics near the star-forming regions. I was actually thinking about registering for the Netherfield conference too, maybe I can talk with some experts on stellar feedback there—” 

“Lizzy, dear,” Dr. Gardiner-Bennet interrupts, and Charlotte can almost hear Lizzy’s facial muscles straining from the effort of keeping still. “Is that the most reasonable course of action? Jane would clearly benefit from presenting at Netherfield, but perhaps using your funding for another conference would be better for you—Dr. Bennet, what do you think?” 

There’s a pause, presumably as Dr. Bennet adopts his usual thinking pose: leaning back in his chair, eyes shut, hands behind his head. It was how he’d spent the entirety of Charlotte’s presentation for her candidacy exam; she’d thought he was asleep until she’d finished, at which point he’d opened his eyes and proceeded to grill her within an inch of her life on the details of near-infrared spectrographs. 

“I think it’s a good idea, Lizzy,” Dr. Bennet says finally. His voice is slow as ever, almost a drawl. It makes him sound perpetually amused. “You could get some... feedback on your feedback, if you will.” Lizzy groans good-naturedly before he even finishes the pun. She’s always been quick on the uptake, which is probably why Dr. Bennet likes her so much. 

Dr. Gardiner-Bennet, on the other hand, is less pleased. “Are we finished joking, or can we have a serious discussion for once?” she asks, her already-piercing voice gradually pitching upwards. 

Charlotte, sensing danger, decides to abscond to the library. 

  


* * *

  


**Lizzy:** charlotte

**Lizzy:** charlotte ugh

**Char:** what’s up? are you at netherfield yet?

**Lizzy:** we just got to the conference center and looked at the schedule

**Lizzy:** and darcy is a keynote speaker

**Char:** yikes

**Lizzy:** ugh why is he even here??

**Lizzy:** this conference is on star formation!! he does galaxy sims!!!

**Char:** i hate to break this to you, but stars do form in galaxies

**Char:** when’s his talk?

**Lizzy:** tomorrow afternoon

**Char:** well your session is thursday, right?

**Char:** just skip his talk if you want. he’ll prob leave right after so you won’t have to see him for the rest of the time, and then you can focus on prepping for your talk

**Char:** not that you ever prepare for talks

**Char:** which is really unfair of you, some of us mere mortals have to practice our talks for days

**Lizzy:** yeah well you refused to go to any improv club meetings with me in undergrad, so that’s your own damn fault

**Char:** a real loss for me, i’m sure

**Char:** go hang out with jane

**Char:** she’s good at soothing you

**Char:** you two can go for a run, or whatever it is you disgusting heathens do to relax

**Lizzy:** yeah yeah ok

**Lizzy:** i hate it when you’re reasonable

**Lizzy:** also running is fun!!!

**Lizzy:** you loved doing that 10k with me!!!

Charlotte decides not to dignify that with a response, because running sucks and she’d nearly died doing that 10K. She tucks her phone behind her gym bag and starts chalking up her hands. Lizzy will be irritable for the next few hours over Darcy and then get over it, the way she usually does, and Jane is there to be the voice of reason if needed. 

Monday night is always way too crowded at the climbing gym, but Charlotte’s gotten used to the crush of people and the permeating smell of chalk and sweat. The regular gym bros nod at her in recognition but don’t say anything, which is just the way she likes it. 

She warms up slowly and methodically on some easy problems, gradually sinking into the almost meditative state that bouldering always inspires in her. She feels most present when she’s on the climbing wall, when she doesn’t have to think about her email inbox or her research progress or postdoc applications—or the tight ball of anxiety in her stomach that grows every time she realizes just how much she doesn’t want to think about postdoc applications. 

“You’re really good!” someone exclaims behind her, just as she’s finishing her second climb. 

“Thanks,” Charlotte responds politely, turning around and putting on her extremely bland customer service smile. Between the cotillion classes her mom made her take in middle school and her barista stint in undergrad, she’s had quite a lot of practice with this smile. 

The guy, who is either supremely confident or terrible at reading nonverbal social cues, grins back and comes to stand next to her. He’s tall—although to be fair, everyone looks tall to Charlotte—with dark floppy hair and glasses, and he’s wearing the terrible climbing shoes that the gym rents out for some exorbitant price. 

“Longbourne Astro?” he says, nodding at her. 

Charlotte blinks for a second before remembering she’s wearing a tank top with the department logo, which she’d bought way back when she was a first year with actual enthusiasm. 

“Oh, yeah, I’m a grad student,” she answers, somewhat stiffly. She knows she’s being unfriendly, but she’s been hit on at the gym before. It’s awkward and horrible and she _hates_ having her precious climbing time interrupted. She glances over to the locker room—maybe she could use the tried-and-true tactic of pretending to go to the bathroom? He might eventually lose interest If she stays there long enough. 

The guy continues to be completely unfazed by her standoffishness. “So you know Dr. Bennet? I worked with him for a while!” he says. Charlotte raises her eyebrows at his enthusiasm, but it doesn’t _seem_ like he’s leading up to a terrible pick-up line. 

“Yeah, he’s still there,” she says after a moment. For some reason his sincerity reminds Charlotte a bit of Jane. It lowers her guard enough that her Southern manners kick in and force her to introduce herself. “I’m Charlotte, by the way.” 

“Nice to meet you, Charlotte,” he says, still smiling. “I’m Billy.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Charlotte responds out of pure habit. Billy’s face is so earnestly friendly that she can’t hold eye contact for long. She looks down under the pretense of fiddling with the chalk bag around her waist. 

“I was at Longbourne until 2014,” Billy continues easily. She can see out of the corner of her eye that he’s still somehow smiling. “You must have joined after, so you’re… what, a fourth year? Fifth year?” 

“Fourth, yeah,” Charlotte says. “My advisor’s Dr. Lucas.” 

“Exoplanets, huh?” he says. 

“Yeah,” she responds. She doesn’t mean to say anything else, but out of the corner of her eye Billy tilts his head and continues looking at her attentively. 

Charlotte shifts her weight for a beat, then two, until the weight of his attention pushes words out of her: “I’m doing transmission spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres, looking for methane signatures in hot Jupiters.” It’s her standard elevator pitch, the one she’s perfected for awkward conference introductions. 

“Sounds interesting,” Billy says. Somewhat amazingly, he actually does sound interested. There’s no way this guy is for real. “Methane… so infrared, then?” 

“Uh, yeah, near-infrared,” she says weakly. “It’s… yeah, it’s cool.” Charlotte can’t figure out what the worst part about this situation is: having her climbing time interrupted, having an awkward conversation with a total stranger, or having the conversation be about her _research_ , of all things. She would almost have preferred a crappy pick-up line. 

“I’m just gonna,” she gestures toward the other side of the gym. “They put up some new problems, so. I’m gonna. Go check them out.” 

“Oh, of course!” he says. He doesn’t look offended. 

She picks up her chalk bag and water bottle and tries to walk away without looking like she’s actively fleeing. Billy doesn’t follow her, and the gym is big enough that Charlotte can almost forget about him as she loses herself in the welcome routine of climbing. It’s hard to dwell on awkward conversations when she’s five feet off the ground trying to balance on her big toe. 

By the time she’s done, her forearms are pleasantly burning in the way that means it was a good climbing session, and she feels infinitely more at peace as she walks to the gym’s workout area. Not even Billy’s presence by the weight racks can perturb her endorphin-fueled zen. Charlotte flashes another blandly polite smile in his direction and settles into her usual stretching routine at the opposite end of the room. 

It’s not until she’s nearly done wiping down her yoga mat that Billy comes to talk to her again. 

“I’m sorry if this is a bit forward,” he starts with another unsettlingly sincere smile, hovering a few feet away as Charlotte rolls up the mat. Charlotte doesn’t try very hard to hide her wince—fuck, is he actually going to try to ask her out?—but he keeps going. “It’s just, you don’t seem very enthusiastic about your research.” 

She blinks. “I… what?” 

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Billy says. “It’s just that I know what it’s like to lose passion for astronomy research, and it seems like that’s where you are too.” 

“I’m passionate about my research!” Charlotte says reflexively, but she knows it’s not quite true as soon as the words leave her mouth. She takes a deep breath and tries to think of something else to say, anything to deflect from the fact that a stranger has somehow stumbled upon the root of most of her existential crises. There’s a pounding in her ears, but that might just be the electro-pop blasting over the gym speakers. 

Luckily Billy doesn’t appear to have noticed the complete breakdown of her entire nervous system. “Well, if you change your mind,” he says earnestly. He hands her a business card. 

Charlotte packs up her gear, waves absently at the girl with the pixie cut behind the gym desk, and drives back to her apartment almost entirely on autopilot. It’s not until she’s back in her apartment and seated at her kitchen table that she actually looks at the card: _Billy Collins,_ it says in a modern-looking sans serif font. _Senior Software Engineer,_ _Rosings Industries._ Some Silicon Valley start-up, then. Probably the kind that snaps up computer science majors to work on “big data solutions” or other corporate bullshit. Probably the kind with annual salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which she could use to help her parents pay off their mortgage. 

Charlotte is not emotionally prepared to think about this right now. She tosses the card into the void of the kitchen junk drawer and tries very hard to think about literally anything else. Fortunately, her phone buzzes with the perfect distraction in the form of a series of melodramatic texts from Lizzy ( _oh fuck i completely forgot caroline and louisa were gonna be here. is it not enough that i have to put up with them being in the office next door?? must their idiocy follow me everywhere i go???_ ). 

She’s just started her response ( _at least aim for passive-aggressive if you can’t be polite to their faces, i can’t handle another inter-office prank war_ ) when another notification pops up: an email from Dr. Lucas with the subject _Re: RE: comments on updated draft_. 

Charlotte manages to talk herself into not responding—it’s 10:30 PM, way past reasonable work hours, this is exactly the kind of work-life boundary setting the woman at the counseling center had recommended she practice—and then, naturally, she spends the next two hours lying awake in bed and feeling guilty about it. 

  


* * *

  


A month later, Charlotte is ambushed by Lizzy as soon as she walks out onto the astronomy building patio for happy hour. 

“Char, he’s here,” Lizzy says ominously, dragging her over to the snack table. As usual, it’s surrounded by a swarm of first-year grad students who station themselves near the free food, forming a sort of protective barrier from the rest of the department. 

“Who, Darcy?” Charlotte asks. “Is that a surprise?” Despite his obvious discomfort around basically everyone who isn’t Charlie Bingley, Darcy has attended the Friday afternoon happy hour every week since coming to the department. In her more uncharitable moments, Lizzy grumbles that he probably does it because he enjoys making other people feel uncomfortable. 

“No, it’s some other asshole for once. This guy Billy, did I not tell you about him? Apparently he used to be Dr. Bennet’s student, but he quit right after quals to go work for some ‘Bay Area tech start-up.’” Lizzy doesn’t actually make scare quotes because her hands are full of pita chips, but Charlotte can hear it in her voice. “He showed up at Dr. B’s office during group meeting this morning and then basically invited himself in.” 

“Huh,” Charlotte says, grabbing a handful of grapes. “What did he want?” 

“Who knows with corporate assholes,” Lizzy huffs. “He tried to talk to me after the meeting, but I had to meet with Lydia so I managed to get out of it.” 

“Huh,” Charlotte says again. She pops a grape in her mouth and spots Billy out of the corner of her eye. He’s sipping an IPA, standing just on the edge of a cluster of postdocs and listening attentively to someone whose face Charlotte can’t see—based on the exuberant hand gestures, probably Marianne Dashwood. Charlotte wonders if Billy’s face hurts from smiling all the time like that. 

She opens her mouth to tell Lizzy about her stilted conversation with Billy at the climbing gym, about the business card, but for some reason closes it again. She reasons with herself that it’s been a long week—she’d had to give a last-minute guest lecture for the planetary atmospheres class when Dr. Lucas called in sick on Monday, and then she’d stayed up late twice for observing—and she’s not really in the mood for Lizzy’s rant about how astronomers are contributing to exploitative capitalist practices by selling out to work for tech companies. 

Charlotte agrees, of course, but… it’s not like academia is any less exploitative in its own way. And honestly, Billy himself hadn’t been that bad. A bit overenthusiastic maybe, but more sincere than she’d expected from a tech bro. 

She’s lost enough in her own thoughts that she doesn’t immediately realize that Lizzy is also distracted. “You okay?” Charlotte asks once she notices Lizzy surreptitiously scanning the patio. 

Lizzy starts. “Oh, uh. Yeah, I was just—looking for someone.” 

“Ah,” Charlotte says knowingly. “George?” 

“What? How did—” Lizzy begins, and Charlotte just looks at her. Lizzy has mentioned George Wickham at least once per day at lunch for the last week. She’d checked her phone so often last night that she’d barely even paid attention to _Say Yes to the Dress_ , which is one of her favorite shows. (Lizzy says it’s because she just likes making fun of the ridiculous brides and mothers-in-law, but Charlotte just _knows_ that Lizzy has a secret Pinterest moodboard for her own future wedding dress.) 

“I spend too much time with you,” Lizzy says, making a face at Charlotte. “Fine, yes, I’m looking for George. He said he was going to be here, but I guess maybe something came up.” 

“Maybe it’s just a lab emergency or something,” Charlotte supplies in a half-hearted attempt to cheer Lizzy up. She’d try harder, but honestly she can’t bring herself to like George much. He seems nice enough, like all the rest of the instrumentation lab staff. Charlotte just thinks it’s a little weird that he’s started showing up at every single grad student event in the last few weeks, always with some excuse that’s clearly just a pretense to corner Lizzy. 

Yesterday he’d been “looking for a wrench” around the same time Lizzy makes tea every morning and had just so happened to drop by the kitchen _._ The _kitchen_ , which is next to the theory wing, whose occupants have probably never touched a wrench in their lives. Charlotte is happy if Lizzy’s happy, of course, and Lizzy’s a closet romantic who would probably be happy with any situation remotely resembling a meet-cute—but Charlotte personally feels that a little subtlety could go a long way here. 

“Or maybe George isn’t here because Darcy’s here,” Lizzy says, eyes narrowing the way they do whenever anyone so much as mentions Darcy’s name. Charlotte absently wonders if Lizzy even knows she does it, or if it’s a Pavlovian tic at this point. “It would be pretty awkward to run into the person who got you expelled in high school, right?” 

Charlotte, who was far too much of a goody-two-shoes in high school to do anything that warranted even a detention, and who also doesn’t really care about George Wickham’s whereabouts, has nothing useful to say to this. She shrugs and starts loading up a mini paper plate with chips and Oreos from the snack table. Thank God for whichever second year is in charge of happy hour this year; last year they’d all had to endure veggie stick trays and cottage cheese because the happy hour organizer was on some disgusting health kick. 

“Anyway,” Lizzy says, visibly shaking herself out of her thoughts, “How are you doing? You were observing this week, right? You must be exhausted.” 

“Yeah, all night Wednesday and then first half yesterday,” Charlotte says. She’s kind of surprised she doesn’t feel more tired right now, actually, but then she remembers the obscene amounts of caffeine she’d consumed in the morning. God bless the department coffee machine. 

“How was the weather?” 

Charlotte grimaces. “Shit, both nights.” 

“Yikes,” Lizzy winces in sympathy. “Clouds?” 

“Puffy little fuckers,” Charlotte says, stuffing an Oreo into her mouth. “But at least Maria brought boba.” 

Lizzy groans dramatically. “She brought you _boba_? How is it you get to work with the sweetest and most adorable baby undergrad on this campus, while I’m stuck with _Lydia_?” 

“Shut up, you love Lydia,” Charlotte says. 

“Not right now I don’t,” Lizzy grumbles. “She wants to go to this conference at U of B in February, but she’s already doing grad school apps _and_ taking like three senior physics classes this semester. She’s going to kill herself trying to get ready for her first conference on top of all that. Also, what the fuck is a finsta?” 

Charlotte blinks, but it’s not the weirdest non sequitur she’s ever heard from Lizzy. “It’s a private Insta account that you only share with your friends,” she says. “Or at least that’s what Maria said, I think. Why… oh my _God_ , are you just grumpy because Lydia made fun of you for being old again?” She cackles loudly enough that the nearest first year—Sam, or maybe Sal, Charlotte is a bad person who hasn’t really bothered to talk to the new grads—jumps and edges away. 

Lizzy huffs in mock indignation, but she doesn’t try to hide her grin. “These youths,” she says sorrowfully, shaking her head. “No respect for their elders, too stubborn for their own good.” 

“Stubborn? That doesn’t sound like anyone I know,” Charlotte says in as dry a tone as she can muster. Lizzy sticks her tongue out at her, and Charlotte raises an eyebrow right back. “Aren’t you supposed to be a paragon of elderly maturity or something?” 

“Fuck you,” Lizzy says without heat, turning to the snack table. “At least _I’d_ probably listen if I was an undergrad and my wise grad student advisor suggested that I not register a late abstract for a conference that’s in two months… Hey, where did all the Chex Mix go?” 

“I don’t really get what the problem is, though,” Charlotte says as Lizzy paws through the mostly-empty family size chip bags on the table. “I mean, it might be a lot of work, but Lydia’s smart. She could slap together a poster with some preliminary results.” 

Lizzy shakes her head again. “Yeah, except we’re not even close to having anything presentable. She spent all summer just collecting archival data for this project, and we haven’t even started on the reduction,” she sighs. “I just don’t see why she’s so set on this! The timing just isn’t good, and she should focus on her grad apps instead. There are always other conferences, and the Brighton thing is just one of those super niche subfield things anyway.” 

Charlotte decides to refrain from pointing out that Lizzy had, as recently as a month ago, gone to a niche subfield conference that wasn’t even directly related to her research. “Get Dr. Bennet to talk to her about not going to the conference?” she suggests instead, then immediately rolls her eyes almost in tandem with Lizzy. “Yeah okay, or not.” 

Lizzy snorts. “Like he’d ever choose to actively mentor a student.” She reaches over to pick at some of the Chex Mix on Charlotte’s plate, ignoring Charlotte’s glare. 

Charlotte opens her mouth, about to tell Lizzy to _get her own fucking Chex Mix or at least stop taking all the rye chips_ , when a new voice cuts in. 

“Hello, Lizzy!” exclaims Billy Collins, who has somehow materialized right next to Charlotte. 

“Uh, hi,” Lizzy says. She gestures at Charlotte. “Billy, this is Charlotte, she’s another grad student in my year. Charlotte, Billy.” 

Charlotte jumps in before he can say anything. She doesn’t know if he remembers her, but she really, really doesn’t want to bring up that awkward exchange at the climbing gym. “Hi Billy, what brings you to Longbourne?” 

Billy’s smile doesn’t falter. “I was in the area and thought I’d stop by and visit my old research group,” he says. “I’ve had such a good time getting to know Dr. Bennet’s current students! Speaking of, Lizzy, do you have some free time to chat early next week?” 

“Um,” Lizzy hedges. “I’m not sure what my schedule looks like yet, why don’t you email me and we can set up a time?” 

“Great, I’ll do that!” Billy says cheerfully. 

“Great,” Lizzy echoes with significantly less enthusiasm. 

They all stand in silence for a few agonizing minutes before Charlotte, taking pity on Lizzy, gasps and pat the pockets of her jeans. “Oh no, I just realized I left my keys in our office—can you just let me in real quick, Lizzy? Sorry to cut your conversation short, Billy, but we’ll be right back!” she says, smiling toothily. She links arms with Lizzy and steers her towards the patio door without waiting for a response. 

As soon as they’re out of earshot from Billy, Lizzy beams at her. “Char, you are a national treasure and I owe you my firstborn child,” she says. 

Charlotte snorts. “What makes you think I’d want any of _your_ future offspring?” She barely manages to dodge Lizzy’s pointy elbow. 

Ten minutes later, they’re nearly back to the patio—Charlotte really had locked her keys in the office, and they’d taken their time on the way back—when someone clears their throat from behind them. “Lizzy,” comes Dr. Darcy’s deep voice. Charlotte can see Lizzy’s entire body tense up. “Do you have a moment?” 

They turn to face him, Lizzy glancing at Charlotte with an expression that clearly reads _what the fuck._ Charlotte widens her eyes back. If Darcy notices this silent exchange, his face betrays nothing. 

“Sure thing,” Lizzy says, slowly. 

“I’ll catch up with you in a bit, Lizzy! I have to go to the restroom,” Charlotte announces, giving her a pat on the shoulder and heading back the way they’d just come. She thinks she’ll have to awkwardly sidestep around Darcy, who’s standing right in the middle of the hallway as if he owns it, but in an unexpected show of politeness he moves out of the way and nods at her as she passes. 

From behind Darcy’s back, Charlotte turns and mimes at Lizzy: _back in ten minutes?_ Lizzy tips her head up in an almost imperceptible nod before focusing on Darcy—Charlotte can pinpoint the exact moment her attention shifts, because Lizzy takes on a thinly-veiled expression of distaste. It looks almost exactly like the time she’d eaten a handful of Skittles mixed with M&Ms at the disastrous Halloween party three years ago, during the peak of her passive-aggressive prank war with Caroline. 

After ten minutes of struggling with the daily NYT crossword on her phone, Charlotte heads back expecting to rescue Lizzy with another excuse—probably something along the lines of getting dinner; Chex Mix and Oreos are only so filling, and she’s getting hungry—but the hallway is completely empty. She sticks her head out the door to the patio, but neither Lizzy nor Darcy are anywhere to be seen. Billy Collins also seems to have headed out; she breathes a sigh of relief and steps all the way outside. 

Jane spots her and waves her over from a clump of grad students on the far side of the patio. It’s a surprisingly balmy night for October, so the patio is still crowded even though happy hour is mostly over. As she weaves around clusters of people, Charlotte catches snippets of conversations. 

“—spent all day working on this Gemini proposal—” 

“Yeah, I think he’s doing an ultramarathon next week—” 

“—I’m absolutely sure Jane will get the Netherfield postdoc!” 

Charlotte doesn’t have to look to know who made that last comment. Dr. Gardiner-Bennet’s dulcet tones are unmistakable and very, very loud. “Charlie would have to be an _idiot_ to pick anyone else for that position!” It’s clear she’s been going on in this vein for a while now. 

_Yikes,_ Charlotte thinks, sneaking a glance over to the corner where Charlie is talking with some other assistant professors. He doesn’t appear to have heard Dr. Gardiner-Bennet, which is good although possibly a sign that he should get his hearing checked—but some of the professors clustered around him look over. Charlotte mentally crosses her fingers for Jane’s sake. Charlie seems like a good sort; hopefully his opinion of her postdoc application won’t be swayed by the fact that Jane’s advisor is weird and pushy. 

She hopes that Jane didn’t hear anything either, but that’s probably too much to ask for. Jane’s hearing is as perfect as everything else about her. 

To Jane’s credit, she does a fantastic job of hiding any embarrassment. “Hey Charlotte!” she beams as Charlotte nears the group at the far end of the patio. There’s a ragged chorus of hellos from the other grads, but they’re all distracted; John Thornton and Maggie Hale are deep in the middle of yet another argument about the benefits of grad student unionization, and everyone else is watching the show. (Charlotte strongly suspects there’s a betting pool involved—either about how long it’ll take for them to start dating, or for how long it’ll take for Maggie to murder John, she’s not sure.) No one pays attention as Jane steps away from the group to talk to Charlotte. 

“How are you?” Jane says, smiling. 

Charlotte smiles back at Jane—it’s physically impossible not to—but she also notices Jane fiddling with one of her box braids, shoulders tense. “I’m alright,” she says. “It’s been a long week. You?” 

“Just hanging in there,” Jane says. Charlotte pretends not to see her glancing worriedly in Charlie’s direction. 

Thanks to her debutante mother’s many dinner parties, Charlotte is extremely practiced at making small talk. She can ask after people’s families and make meaningless observations about the weather with the best of them, but comforting people in actual distress is usually a job she leaves to Jane. So Charlotte resorts to her usual comfort mechanism of offering food: “Want to get dinner with Lizzy and me?” 

“I’d love to,” Jane says, shoulders loosening a bit. “I was just about to head out anyway.” She looks around. “Where _is_ Lizzy? I haven’t seen her for a while.” 

That, of course, is the moment when Lizzy stalks through the patio door, face deceptively bland but with a dangerous glint in her eye. Both Jane and Charlotte have known her long enough to know what that means: Lizzy needs to get as far away from the department as possible before she unsheathes her sharp tongue on the wrong person. 

“Yeah okay, let’s get dinner now,” Charlotte says. 

They don’t have to wait long for the explosion. Lizzy starts seething on the walk to the parking garage. Charlotte has trouble figuring out what happened at first, but in between Lizzy’s frequent asides of “what an asshole” and “how dare he” and “so fucking rude, right?” and Jane’s soothingly attentive noises, she manages to piece together that Lizzy and Darcy had had a coldly civil conversation with some thinly-veiled passive-aggressive subtext about George. 

“Then he was like, ‘George Wickham is charming enough to make friends, but not so good at keeping them.’ Can you _believe_ this asshole? As if he hasn’t ruined George’s life enough already! So I told him that, I said, ‘Maybe not the best at keeping _your_ friendship, which seems to have made his life pretty difficult.’” 

Maybe not so thinly-veiled, then. 

Charlotte isn’t particularly worried. Lizzy’s anger has always been just as quick as it is intense—and easily assuaged by a full stomach. True to form, Lizzy simmers down by the time they get to the Oaxacan place downtown, and the tlayuda they order is delicious enough to bring her back to her usual lively self. Jane, pleased that Lizzy has cheered up, also seems to forget her own distress, and Charlotte pats herself on the back for once again managing to be a good friend without actually having to talk about emotions. 

  


* * *

  


**From:** Jane <janeb@longbourne.edu>  
**To:** Charlie Bingley <cb@astro.longbourne.edu>  
**Subject:** Inquiry about postdoc position 

Dear Charlie, 

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me last week! I was wondering if you’d be free to meet this week to talk about the postdoc position opening up in the Netherfield collaboration this cycle. 

Best,  
Jane 

\- 

**From:** Charlie Bingley <cb@astro.longbourne.edu>  
**To:** Jane <janeb@longbourne.edu>  
**Subject:** Automatic reply: Inquiry about postdoc position 

Hi, thanks for your email! I’m out of the office and will be back soon! I’ll try to respond to your message as soon as possible. 

Cheers, Charlie 

\- 

**From:** Lizzy <lizzy@astro.longbourne.edu>  
**To:** Charlotte <charlottel@longbourne.edu>  
**Subject:** FW: FW: Automatic reply: Inquiry about postdoc position 

wtf look at this response jane got from charlie 

\- 

**From:** Charlotte <charlottel@longbourne.edu>  
**To:** Lizzy <lizzy@astro.longbourne.edu>  
**Subject:** Have you no sense of shame when it comes to personal privacy? 

…But also what??? Where is he?? Isn’t he supposed to be teaching today? 

\- 

“I guess he’s giving colloquia at other schools for the next few weeks,” Jane says over lunch. Her tone is very carefully neutral. 

“But why?” Charlotte asks. “It’s the middle of the semester. He literally just got this job, there’s no way he’s doing the rounds for tenure yet.” 

Jane glances around before lowering her voice. “Caroline heard that he was offered another position.” 

“And you’re taking _Caroline’s_ word on this?” Lizzy asks. Jane shoots her a quelling look, and she rolls her eyes in response. “Fine, okay, Caroline always knows the latest gossip—maybe because that’s all she spends her time doing—” 

“ _Lizzy_ ,” Jane says. 

“—but that doesn’t mean the latest gossip is always _right_ ,” Lizzy continues, ripping off a bite of cafeteria pizza. “And that doesn’t explain why he didn’t give any warning before disappearing. He talked with you last week, he would’ve mentioned it then.” 

“Professors are busy people,” Jane says. “He probably just forgot.” She blows on her thermos of steaming chicken noodle soup. Knowing Jane, it was probably made from scratch and meal-prepped a week in advance. Charlotte, looking down at her own cafeteria-bought sushi, resists the urge to sigh; after years of friendship she’s mostly given up on being jealous of Jane’s ability to have her life together like an actual adult, but that soup smells divine. “I think Darcy went with Charlie,” Jane adds after a pause to sip at her soup. Lizzy looks up sharply. “I haven’t seen him around either, and Caroline mentioned something about them flying back to Boston together.” 

“Good fucking riddance,” Lizzy mutters under her breath. Jane makes a face, clearly torn by her empathy for Lizzy and her ingrained desire to believe the best of everyone. 

“Well, Charlie’s probably not checking his email if he’s traveling,” Charlotte offers. “If you want to talk with him about the postdoc, you could just send him a follow-up email when he gets back.” 

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Jane says, brightening a bit at the suggestion. 

“Hold on,” Lizzy says, “remind me where he’s going again?” 

Jane shrugs. “Caroline said he flew back to Boston with Darcy, and it sounds like they’ll be there for a while before Charlie starts his round of colloquia.” 

“Hmmm,” Lizzy says, taking another bite of pizza. She chews for a minute, a thoughtful look on her face, then says, “Well anyway, I was thinking of going hiking this weekend. Do either of you want to come?” 

Charlotte narrows her eyes at her, instinctively suspicious at the change of topic, which was abrupt even for Lizzy—but sweet, innocent Jane accepts it with alacrity. “Ooh, where are you going?” she asks. 

“Probably Meryton?” Lizzy says. “It should be pretty nice this weekend, so we were thinking of doing a full-day hike up to the falls.” 

“ _‘We’_?” Charlotte says shrewdly, and is rewarded when Lizzy flushes. 

“Yeah, uh, I think George might come too,” she says, determinedly not looking at Charlotte. 

“Oh my gosh, Lizzy, that’s so cute!” Jane squeaks. “Are you sure you want us along?” 

“Yeah, we’d probably just get in the way of you two… _hiking_ ,” Charlotte says, raising an eyebrow. “If that’s what the kids call it these d—hey!” The piece of pizza crust Lizzy tosses at her bounces off her shirt, showering crumbs all over her lap. 

“Settle down, kids,” Jane says, amused and reproving at the same time. “Sorry, Lizzy, I just remembered, I couldn’t go this weekend anyway. I have to pack for MIT next week.” 

“Oh that’s right, I forgot you’re going for your job talk!” Lizzy says with a tone of very obviously fake surprise. She ignores the look that Charlotte slants in her direction. “You’re leaving on Monday, right?” 

Unbelievably, Jane seems to actually believe Lizzy’s acting—which is truly awful! improv club in undergrad, Charlotte’s _ass—_ and walks right into her trap. “Yes, I get in Monday night, and then I’m at MIT all day Tuesday.” 

“Are you leaving right after that?” Lizzy asks nonchalantly. 

“No, I’m staying for a couple more days with a friend from undergrad. I’ll be back in time for happy hour on Friday, don’t worry!” Jane beams. 

Lizzy’s gaze sharpens, and Charlotte watches the trap close. “So… what if you just stop by Harvard then? Find Charlie and talk to him in person?” 

“What? Oh, no, Lizzy, that would be so weird, I couldn’t—” 

“You’re already in the area,” Lizzy cajoles. “You have a good excuse about wanting to network with other people in the Cambridge area. If you end up at MIT, you’d want to know people at Harvard anyway.” 

“I don’t know,” Jane says, hand creeping up nervously towards her braids. “I don’t want Charlie to think I’m desperate for the Netherfield position.” 

“He won’t! And honestly, even if he does, I mean, it’s your dream postdoc, isn’t it? Tons of Hubble time, a chance to work in a bigger collaboration… it’s not desperate to go after it if it’s perfect for you! You just have to convince _him_ that it’s perfect for you.” 

Charlotte can tell Jane is wavering, and Lizzy wisely backs off to let her think. Jane finishes her dessert—a blueberry muffin that is also definitely homemade; Charlotte tries very, very hard to contain her immediate and intense envy—in silence before finally looking up again. “It’s not too weird?” she asks. 

“Definitely not!” Lizzy assures her right away. 

Jane looks at Charlotte for a second opinion, and Charlotte thinks about it: Charlie has always clearly liked Jane, her overbearing advisor aside, and it wouldn’t hurt to make her interest in the Netherfield postdoc as clear as possible. Especially without Dr. Gardiner-Bennet around. It’s... actually not a bad idea. 

“It’s actually not a bad idea,” she says. 

Unfortunately, reading between the lines of Jane’s blandly cheerful texts the following Wednesday, it becomes clear that it hadn’t necessarily been a _good_ idea, either. 

  


* * *

  


A month later finds Charlotte in her favorite coffee shop, trying desperately to make a plot look like less of a piece of shit, when the “Low Battery” warning pops up on her laptop. She ignores it until she realizes her laptop is down to 2%, at which point she panics and tries to dig out her charger before it dies. 

She ducks under the table to hunt for a nearby outlet just as the door chimes. A customer walks up to the counter to order—the voice sounds almost familiar, something about the enunciation of the t’s at the end of “flat white.” Charlotte pauses for a second to try to place it, before remembering that her laptop is about to die and frantically diving for the outlet. She’s just plugged in her charger when the barista asks for a name for the order, please? 

“Billy,” the voice says. 

_Fuck_ , Charlotte thinks. She’d gone off campus specifically to escape the department; between Lizzy being pricklier than usual and Jane surreptitiously refreshing her email every five minutes and sighing at the lack of responses from Charlie, the office hadn’t exactly been a positive work environment. 

Of course it’s just her luck that some of the department drama follows her—to her favorite coffee shop, no less, which is Charlotte’s favorite precisely because it’s far enough from the university to be significantly less popular than the Starbucks on campus. Almost no one comes here during the work day, except the odd suburban parent running errands and the handful of grad students who have also discovered this undergrad-free haven. 

And now Billy Collins, Charlotte supposes, but then he’d been a grad student once too. She briefly contemplates just staying under the table until he leaves, but— _of course_ —he comes to sit at the table next to hers. 

This might as well just happen now, she decides resignedly, sitting back up. 

“Charlotte!” Billy exclaims when he sees her, surprised but cheerful as ever. Lizzy’s rejection of his job offer two days ago had been very nearly outright rude, but he’d taken it in stride despite his shock, and he doesn’t seem particularly affected now. It’s more than Charlotte can say for Lizzy, who was already grumpy after officially breaking things off with George last week, and whose bad mood had only been exacerbated by Billy trying to recruit her for a tech job. Charlotte had listened to her mutter under her breath about the evils of capitalism for the rest of the work day. 

“Hi, Billy,” Charlotte says, dredging up a polite smile. 

“It’s good to see you again,” Billy says, so sincerely that Charlotte can’t help but believe that he really is happy to see her. 

“Thanks,” she says, somewhat awkwardly. Billy’s earnestness isn’t really a novel experience, not after years of friendship with Jane. It just seems so deeply incongruous with Billy’s appearance—between the Patagonia vest and thick-rimmed glasses, he might as well be waving a giant sign that says “I am a tech bro, ask me about my start-up idea”—that it keeps catching her off-guard. “Do you... live around here?” she asks, which is the most polite way she can think of to ask _why the fuck are you in my coffee shop_. “I was under the impression you worked in the Bay Area.” 

“My business trip’s been extended,” he says ruefully. “Not that I mind being here!” he adds quickly, "I just didn’t think it would take quite so long.” 

“I see,” Charlotte says, not really seeing at all. The only business trips she’s really familiar with are for academic conferences or colloquium visits, the kind of thing with concrete start and end dates. 

Billy elaborates, “I’m supposed to be hiring for a new position at my company—Rosings Industries, you might have heard of it?” 

Technically she _has_ heard of it, from that business card he’d given her months ago, but she never actually bothered to look them up and therefore has no idea what they actually do. “Yeah, I remember the name,” she says, deciding that tact is the better part of valor. 

“Great!” he beams. “Well, we’re a pretty small consulting firm, but we’re in the middle of a major expansion, and the CEO wants me to find some new blood.” He laughs somewhat self-consciously. “It turns out I’m not very good at corporate recruitment. I was hired as a software engineer, you know.” 

“Ah, yeah, it seems like those would take pretty different skill sets,” Charlotte says. She can hear her mother’s voice in the back of her head, repeating one of her many comportment lessons: _if you don’t know what to say, summarize whatever they just said. People love having their own thoughts reinforced._

“Yeah, exactly!” Billy says. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to try something new, though. One of the nice things about working for such a small company is how flexible it is! The CEO actually gave me the assignment herself. She’s really great, you know—Catherine de Bourgh, she was on Forbes’ Top 50 Women in Tech list last year? She founded the company a few years ago. I was one of the first people she hired. It’s really incredible how much we’ve grown since then.” 

Charlotte lets him prattle on, humming in agreement or interjecting “oh, I see” at appropriate intervals. She’s surprised to find that it’s not actually that bad, talking with Billy—or rather, letting him talk at her. He’s so enthusiastic that it’s very nearly infectious; it’s almost like listening to Lizzy go off on a tear about star formation or galaxy evolution. 

Not that she’d ever make that comparison within Lizzy’s hearing range. Charlotte can easily imagine the impassioned speech she’d get about technology’s role in the military-industrial complex and how tech bros are a scourge on humanity. She’s not _wrong_ , Charlotte would also happily punch Jeff Bezos in the face, but… surely there are not-evil reasons to join a tech company, right? 

“Why did you leave academia?” she asks Billy. She abruptly realizes she’s cut him off in the middle of a sentence, but he doesn’t seem to mind. 

“That’s a good question,” Billy says, and actually pauses to consider it for a moment. “I… well, I guess at some point, I just realized that I didn’t actually want to keep doing it. The whole academic thing, I mean,” he clarifies. “I liked the day-to-day stuff, more or less, the problem solving and the coding and everything. But I realized I could do a lot of the same stuff in industry, and with a lot more benefits. And it’s not—bad, you know. Most of the projects we do are aimed at helping people, solving their problems. I can have a bigger impact on people’s lives than I ever would have if I’d kept studying galaxies.” 

He pauses again. Charlotte thinks he’ll say more, maybe explain how he ended up doing software engineering or just go back to gushing about Catherine de Bourgh—God knows he hasn’t had much trouble carrying on the conversation all by himself—but instead he just looks her in the eye, tilting his head in the same attentive way that he’d looked at her in the climbing gym all those months ago. The weight of his attention had felt oppressively heavy back then, like he was waiting for something from her; it had made her uneasy, especially coming from a stranger. It still feels heavy now, but it’s—not uncomfortable. Like he’s waiting, still, for something from her, but he has all the time in the world to wait for it. 

Charlotte fiddles with the cord of her laptop charger. She can feel a question building somewhere inside her, rising hot on the back of her tongue, but she doesn’t quite know what it is. _How did you do it_ , maybe, or _do you have advice for me?_ Or maybe all she really wants is some kind of benediction: someone to look into her soul and tell her she’s not a bad person for not loving astronomy enough to stay. 

“Was it... hard to leave?” she asks instead, which is close enough. 

Billy nods as if he expected the question. “Deciding to leave, that was hard,” he says thoughtfully. “But once I’d made the decision, actually leaving was one of the easiest things in the world.” 

Charlotte thinks about that answer long after Billy leaves the coffee shop with a smile and a “please do keep in touch, Charlotte! You have my business card, right? I’d love to hear from you soon!” 

She tries to focus on making her plot legible—something about the color scheme is making it look too crowded, but she can’t quite put her finger on what it is—but gives up after she catches herself vacantly staring into space for the third time. She packs up and makes the long trek back to the campus parking garage, then sits in the driver’s seat with the key in the ignition for nearly twenty minutes. Her brain feels like it’s filled with static, thoughts flitting in and out but not actually sticking. 

She finally shakes herself out of it and drives to the climbing gym, hoping to find clarity there. The gym is blessedly empty; as she goes through her warm-up stretches, she realizes it’s because it’s only three in the afternoon. If she had a nine-to-five job, she probably wouldn’t be here either. 

She pictures it while shaking out her arms: waking up, working for a set number of hours, coming to the gym to climb before dinner. That—wouldn’t be so awful, actually, Charlotte thinks. It would at least be a lot healthier than her current schedule, which is horribly erratic but often involves staying at the office until 9PM, then staying at the climbing gym until closing—then going home and staying up until well past midnight, either doing work or having anxiety about doing work. A nine-to-five schedule might be nice, especially if it would keep her mother from complaining about the giant bags under Charlotte’s eyes every time they FaceTime. 

Charlotte grimaces and tries to find a harder problem to lose her thoughts in. 

Except it doesn’t work—normally climbing puts her in a state of calm, helps clear her thoughts until she’s one with the rock, or the plastic holds, or whatever. But this time she can feel her emotions ratcheting up each time she falls, getting increasingly frustrated and reckless even though she _knows_ it isn’t helping. To cap it all off, after nearly an hour of throwing herself at the wall, a flap of skin rips off one of her calluses. Charlotte stares at it, half-unseeing, for a solid minute before swearing and going in search of a band-aid. 

The sting of soap as she’s washing her hands snaps her out of her thoughts enough to make her realize that she should probably just go home. It usually irritates her to give up on a problem so easily, but instead... she feels oddly calmer on the drive back to her apartment. 

It’s a feeling not unlike when she’d finally picked a grad program. Lizzy had accepted the position at Longbourne right after the prospective visit, but Charlotte had needed a whole month afterwards. She’d known it was selfish to wait, especially when other people might be on the waiting list, but she’d felt like she really needed time to think over her options—and eventually, when she had, it had been such a _relief_ just to have finally decided. 

A few days later, she stands in her kitchen holding Billy’s business card, tracing the shiny black ink of the phone number underneath _Rosings Industries_. 

She takes a breath and dials the number. 

“Hi Billy, it’s Charlotte from Longbourne Astro,” she says when he picks up. “Could you tell me more about this position you’re hiring for?” 

  


* * *

  


“ _What?_ ” Lizzy says, gaping at Charlotte, dropping her fork into her container of pineapple fried rice. “You… _what?_ ” 

“I talked to Billy Collins, and I decided to take a job as a software engineer at Rosings Industries,” Charlotte repeats as calmly as she can. 

She’d decided to break the news to Lizzy over Thursday Thai, hoping that the food would help soften the shock—and she’d known it was going to be a shock to Lizzy, who is the kind of person who can’t imagine doing anything other than astrophysics research. 

Even when Lizzy complains about her work, which is not infrequent, anyone with half a brain cell can tell that she loves it. She likes research, she likes teaching, she even likes networking and department politics and all the stuff any rational person would run screaming from. (“I don’t know,” she’d shrugged once, when Charlotte had complained after the second time a professor—bless his heart—hit “reply all” in response to a department-wide email. “It’s kind of entertaining watching the ridiculous shit people do.”) 

And Charlotte… Charlotte is good at what she does, and she likes it well enough. On good days she even remembers that it’s actually pretty cool that she gets paid to study planets outside the solar system. But it’s just a job, at the end of the day. She’d probably have just as good a chance of happiness in any other reasonably well-paying job. 

She just hopes Lizzy sees it that way. 

Right now it’s a bit hard to tell what Lizzy’s thinking; she’s just opening and closing her mouth like a bewildered fish. “You mean, after graduation,” she says, eventually. It’s not quite a question. 

“No,” Charlotte replies evenly, “I’m starting in a month.” 

“So... you’re going to take a tech job.” 

“Yes.” 

“You’re going to quit the PhD.” 

“Yes.” 

“But… _why?”_ Lizzy asks incredulously. Oh, that’s not a good sign. “You’re like a year out from graduating, all you have left is the thesis. Why quit _now_?” 

“I don’t know, Lizzy, it’s just… not worth it,” Charlotte says, sighing. As soon as the words leave her mouth, she realizes it was the exact wrong thing to say to calm Lizzy down. 

“Not _worth it_?” Lizzy’s voice goes up nearly a whole octave. 

Charlotte sighs again. “It just feels like, you know, a sunk cost type thing. For me, anyway. Like the degree itself isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, you know? I just wanted to get a job, and now I have a really good offer, so I might as well take it.” 

Lizzy is silent for a moment. Then: “You just… wanted to get a job,” she repeats slowly, voice suddenly expressionless. 

Charlotte can feel her metaphorical hackles rising at the flat look on Lizzy’s face. She knows exactly where this is going: Charlotte’s going to get defensive, and because she isn’t the daughter of a Georgia debutante for _nothing_ she’ll lash out with something passive-aggressive. Then Lizzy will get upset, and Lizzy always goes right for the jugular when she gets upset. Mutually assured destruction will ensue. 

Unfortunately, knowing the outcome doesn’t actually stop her from spitting out the first politely cutting thing that comes to mind. “Yes, Lizzy, I wanted a job,” she says, trying to keep her voice even. “Is there something wrong with that?” 

“No,” Lizzy bites back, “I just thought you were _better than that_.” 

Even though Charlotte had seen it coming, it’s still enough to make her completely lose her cool. “Look, believe it or not, _some_ of us can’t afford a shit-paying job—” 

Lizzy barrels on, her volume steadily rising. “So you’re going into tech for the _money?_ When you _know_ how shitty tech companies are—” 

“—for, what, years? On the off chance that we _might_ get a tenure-track job one day—” 

“—my God, you even wrote a fucking paper in senior year on Facebook’s unethical practices!” 

“—and I have a perfectly good job offer _right now_ , and what the _fuck_ does a polisci essay I wrote five years ago have to do with anything, it’s not like I’m going to work for _Facebook_ —” 

“I just don’t _get it!_ ” Lizzy says, nearly shouting at this point. “You’re so good at this, Char, you won’t have any trouble getting a postdoc! I don’t understand why you’re throwing this away to be a _software engineer—_ ” 

“Because I’m not you, Lizzy!” Charlotte almost-yells right back. She and Lizzy stare at each other. “I just don’t want to keep doing this, okay? I don’t love it the way you do. Astro research, software engineering, whatever—it’s just a _job_.” She pauses, and—both because it’s true and because she feels raw and aching on the inside, the way she always does whenever she and Lizzy have one of their rare explosive fights—quietly adds, “I thought you’d be happy for me.” 

Lizzy’s entire face crumples in on itself. She drops her eyes, picking up her fork and pushing her rice around the plastic container. The silence stretches tense and thin, ringing in Charlotte’s ears. 

“I am happy for you, Char,” Lizzy finally says. She takes a deep breath and looks up, determinedly looking somewhere in the vicinity of Charlotte’s left eyebrow. “I am, really. I was just… surprised.” 

They don’t say much else after that. Charlotte makes an excuse to head out, leaving the rest of her pad see ew as an awkward peace offering of sorts. She drives home and gets ready for bed almost mechanically, out of pure habit, then lies in bed and stares at the ceiling for what feels like hours. 

When Charlotte had been thinking over her grad school options, Lizzy hadn’t really understood why she’d needed so much time to decide. But she’d been supportive, had patiently listened to Charlotte mutter to herself about pros and cons of different course requirements and costs of living, and had never once pushed her—and then, when Charlotte had finally decided on Longbourne, Lizzy had shrieked for joy and hugged her hard enough to lift her off the floor. “I didn’t want to pressure you or anything,” she’d said, “but I really, really hated the idea of grad school without my best friend.” 

Charlotte rolls over and cries until her eyes are sore. 

  


* * *

  


After that, everyone else’s reactions aren’t so bad. Her mom hadn’t really understood the point of a PhD to begin with, and she’s happily shocked when Charlotte tells her about the starting bonus Rosings has offered. Dr. Lucas is definitely a little disappointed but hides it pretty well—better than Charlotte had thought he would—and even manages a supportive smile. Jane is, of course, nothing but happy for her. 

It’s almost enough to make her forget the look on Lizzy’s face. 

  


* * *

  


Charlotte is somewhat pleasantly surprised to discover that she actually does like her new job, although it’s not so much a new job as an entirely new lifestyle. She has a new apartment; it’s not massive, because even on a six-figure salary the Bay Area is still a real estate nightmare, but it’s a significant upgrade from the tiny closet-sized place she’d had at Longbourne. She spends her first week after moving in just wandering around San Francisco, taking a few touristy field trips to the Aquarium of the Bay and Ghirardelli Square. She finds a new climbing gym in the Mission, and a not-yet-gentrified restaurant near her place that has great burritos. 

(She’d been a bit nervous going into her first day of work, but had quickly realized that her first day would mostly just involve watching a bunch of videos about all the ways Rosings “values a collegial work culture.” 

At lunch a few people had clustered around her desk, clearly there to welcome the newbie. One person—wearing jeans and a flannel shirt that looked like it had come right off an REI mannequin; Charlotte felt horribly over-dressed in her business-casual blouse and silently vowed to find some less dressy work clothes—had led a round of introductions. “I’m Carl Fitzwilliam, they/them pronouns, social media manager! Or just Fitzwilliam, if you’re Catherine and I’ve accidentally forgotten to tweet using our hashtag of the week.” 

“Really, Carl? _Again?”_ someone else teased. “How dare you forget to use ‘hashtag creative crush’ in all your tweets?” 

“See, this is why you’re Catherine’s favorite and I’m not, Anne,” Carl quipped good-naturedly, and everyone laughed. “Anyway, it’s great to meet you, Charlotte. Do you want to join us for lunch?” 

At some point during lunch—sometime in between suppressing giggles at Carl’s spot-on impression of Billy during the last quarterly meeting, and explaining her astronomy background to a rapt Anne, who turned out to be a space geek—Charlotte realized the nervous knot in her belly had loosened.) 

Charlotte starts to settle into an actual routine, which is such an incredibly novel experience that it almost feels like she’s living someone else’s life. She finally starts to get used to Billy’s enthusiasm after his third supervisory check-in with her, and even the much-vaunted Catherine de Bourgh isn’t nearly as intimidating as she’s been made out to be. Charlotte privately thinks Catherine’s a bit self-absorbed, but then she supposes that might just be a trait common to all CEOs—and anyway, it’s easy to deal with after years of interacting with professors. 

By far the most surprising thing about her new career is the sudden abundance of free time in the evenings and on the weekends. Charlotte goes on day trips to Mount Tam with people from the climbing gym and gets a membership at the Exploratorium. She goes to Napa wine tastings with Anne and cheers Carl on at the SF Half Marathon. The space inside her that misses Lizzy is still there, but it slowly comes to feel less chafed raw and more… bruised, like a cut that’s scabbing over. 

Which is why it feels like a tub of icy water has been dropped over her head when she wakes up on a Saturday to a flood of notifications on her phone. The most recent, timestamped from 2:30am, are from Jane. 

**Jane:** This probably won’t come as a surprise, but Lizzy is pretty drunk right now

**Jane:** I hope her texts haven’t been too invasive…

**Jane:** You don’t have to respond! you should only do what you’re comfortable with, ok? And I can run interference with Lizzy if you want me to

**Jane:** She’s been… sad, but she’ll be ok.

**Jane:** Anyway, I hope you’re alright!!! I’d love to catch up sometime, let me know if you want to talk sometime this week? 

Charlotte reads the messages again, then taps on the unread texts from Lizzy with some apprehension. She blinks a bit at the absolute wall of text that greets her. 

**Lizzy:** hey char, hope youre doing well

**Lizzy:** i just wanted to say that i’m really sorry

**Lizzy:** i was really shitty to you when you told me about your job offer. i was. surprised and i guess i felt betrayed in a way? which is super irratoinal but i

**Lizzy:** guess i rly thought we were gonna like

**Lizzy:** graduate together and then get postdocs and then be profsesors together

**Lizzy:** probably not in the same place all the time bc the two body problem is basically impossible lol

**Lizzy:** but you know what i mean?? i thought we were gonna be like those senior profs at conferences, you kno??? like the ones who go way back and have all kinds of stories together

**Lizzy:** and also you really wouldve been an amazing professor, way better than most of the mediocre yt dudes who somehow have tenure

**Lizzy:** butanyway that’s not an excuse. i was a shitty friend

**Lizzy:** i shouldve been supportive from the start, the way youve always been with me

**Lizzy:** and i’m so so sorry for all the shitty things i said to you

**Lizzy:** i want you to be happy, and if you’re happy at your new job then i really am happy for you, bc that’s what you deserve

**Lizzy:** i;m sorry for being a terrible friend, and i’m sorry it took me so long to apologize properly, and im sorry for bothering you now

**Lizzy:** and i totally get if you don’t want to talk to me anymore

**Lizzy:** but i jsut wanted you to know that i love you and i miss you and i really relaly hope you’re doing well 

Charlotte isn’t sure how long she just sits on her bed after that. She taps to start a reply, stares at the screen, then closes the keyboard because she doesn’t actually know what to say. Then she locks the phone and makes herself go about her day; she’d planned to check out the farmer’s market, and maybe stop by the Exploratorium’s new special exhibit afterwards, and she might as well do that instead of just staring like an idiot at her phone. 

As far as distractions go, it’s not ideal—the BART, like most methods of public transportation, is an environment that encourages silent brooding while avoiding eye contact with other passengers—but she does learn a great cheesecake recipe at a market-to-table demo, so at least the day’s not a total waste. 

Charlotte ends up responding to Lizzy the next day, after she’s managed to get a good night’s sleep—which meant sleeping in obscenely late, since she’d had an unsurprisingly hard time falling asleep. She’d woken up feeling groggy, but the sleep had helped more than she’d thought it would, and she feels more sure now of what she wants to say. She doesn’t hesitate all that much in typing out a reply: _hey, is it okay if i call?_

Her phone buzzes almost immediately. 

  


* * *

  


A few weekends later, there’s a cautious knock at her door. 

“Hi,” Lizzy blurts when she opens it, flushed and clearly nervous. 

“Hey,” Charlotte says. 

There’s a hesitant silence for a long second, and then Lizzy holds up a plastic takeout bag. “Uh, is tofu pad see ew okay?” She smiles tentatively. It’s the most fragile-looking expression Charlotte’s ever seen on her face. 

“Oh, well, if you brought Thai food, I guess I can let you in,” Charlotte says, and opens her arms for a hug. 

**Author's Note:**

> In five years, Lizzy becomes a professor in the same department as Darcy. Fortunately, she no longer hates him; it helps that he'd managed to save the Bennet group reputation from Lydia's attempt to falsify data (spurred on by George). Unfortunately, Lizzy is an stubborn idiot who refuses to acknowledge any deeper feelings, so Charlotte ends up having to play agony aunt over text during the ensuing romantic comedy of errors.


End file.
